ANALYSIS: A government-appointed panel is reviewing the country’s 17-month-old law on medically assisted death, assessing whether it should be extended to teens and the mentally ill.

Charles Lewis

TORONTO — Canada’s 17-month-old legalized euthanasia/assisted suicide regime, praised as a model of restraint and balance by its supporters, appears to be heading for a major expansion — raising the specter of a law that will help to kill new classes of people who are ill and suffering.

A government-appointed panel of specialists is now reviewing the law, enacted in June 2016. They have been tasked with recommending whether teenagers and the mentally ill should also have the right to end their own lives. The panel is also studying the possibility of allowing requests for assisted suicide through advanced directives authorizing it for those concerned about being left to linger in a vegetative state.

For some, the potential expansion is a frightening but inevitable part of state-sanctioned killing, regardless of the original restrictions.

“I think this is a hardening of conscience,” Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto told the Register. “Just as sometimes calluses grow on the physical body, they can form on the human conscience. And what people were once rightly sensitive to as being as wrong, they’ve come to accept. Familiarity breeds contempt. And familiarity also allows people to accept what was unacceptable.

“We were shocked at the thought of any euthanasia. And now we’re shocked at extending it. But then we’ll get used to that [as a culture]. As it keeps going, more and more, we’ll be shocked for a moment and then we will accept it. I think this is a really sick addictive behavior in society.”

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the London, Ontario-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which opposes medically assisted suicide in many countries, agrees that, as the line moves, societal acceptance becomes more elastic.

“The fact remains that the only clear line is to kill or not to kill. Once you have accepted killing as an acceptable response to human difficulty, then the only remaining question is: Who can be killed and under what circumstances?” he said.

In February 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the Canadian Criminal Code provisions that equated assisted suicide with murder. By a 9-0 vote, it argued that laws preventing medically assisted killing went against the constitutional right to happiness.

The court’s decision left the parameters wide open, but the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose to set limits on who could apply to have their life ended. Essentially, the Canadian government’s legislation on medically assisted killing said that the person involved must be of legal age, mentally competent and someone whose death was reasonably foreseeable.

An editorial in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, published to mark the June 2017 anniversary of the new law, called its restrictions “sensible” because they would “prevent Canadians from making hasty decisions.” The editorial jibed with the generally held position the law will not change subsequently and that concerns regarding a potential “slippery slope” are nothing more than fear-mongering. It also reflected the views of many of Canada’s mainstream newspapers.

Even with the restrictions, in the first 12 months of legalization, nearly 2,000 Canadians died via medically prescribed poison injected into their veins. To put that into perspective, in 2003, Belgium, in its first full year of legal assisted suicide, killed 235 of its citizens. Accounting for Belgium’s smaller population, that means Canada helped three times as many people on a per capita basis to take their own lives.

Pro-Life Concerns

Yet, at the end of last year, the government quietly called for a committee of specialists to explore whether to extend the right to medically assisted suicide to teens and the mentally ill. It also was asked to look at allowing requests for voluntary euthanasia in advanced directives. While the report may not be released till late into 2018, the fact the government is studying an expansion of assisted suicide is setting off alarms in Canada’s pro-life community.

“Legislators argued that they were going to enact tight legislation that would not be abused and that would be balanced, but in fact, since the legalization, all we have heard about is the need to expand the law,” said Schadenberg. “Children, people with psychological issues and people with dementia cannot clearly request or consent to being killed. The three areas of expansion that are being debated show that the requirement that the person must clearly request that they be killed was only a selling point to get the country to accept euthanasia.”

For example, it recommended that those with “mental suffering” also be allowed to end their lives by the hands of their doctors.

“That physical or psychological suffering that is enduring and intolerable to the person in the circumstances of his or her condition should be recognized as a criterion to access medical assistance in dying (MAID),” according to the committee.

And while the committee never used the words “teens” or “children,” it did make it clear that age should not be a factor in deciding who is eligible for assisted suicide. It recommended that the legislation ensure that “eligibility for MAID” depend “on competence rather than age.”

A major concern for anti-euthanasia activists is that the Liberal Party supported euthanasia in practice before it was legalized; and in the last federal election, in 2015, the Liberals banned all pro-life candidates from running under their banner.

Educating Catholics

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.

“Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded” (2277).

Just prior to the Supreme Court of Canada decision, an Angus Reid poll found 70% of Catholics supporting assisted suicide, compared with nearly 70% of evangelical Protestants opposing it.

That failure on the part of many Catholics to recognize euthanasia’s danger and their ignorance of what the Church teaches is something that must be changed before it expands, said Patricia Murphy, assistant professor of moral theology at St. Augustine’s Seminary in Toronto.

“Catholics should be shocked, outraged — and very concerned about where this is going.”

“Even if they were not engaged on this issue before, I hope that Canadians — especially Catholics — will step up now. I hope they will talk to their friends, families and colleagues about what is really going on. If Catholics remain passive, the results will be disastrous, especially for our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.”

While only six U.S. states and the District of Columbia now have legalized medically assisted suicide, any changes north of the border could significantly influence the handling of the matter in the United States, as well.

“No country in the world that has had some form of assisted suicide or euthanasia has been able to confine it to just the terminally ill. It has always started that way, but has gradually progressed to the nonterminal, which ends up including psychiatric patients,” said pro-life activist Dr. Mark Komrad, a psychiatrist and medical ethicist on the faculty of psychiatry at John Hopkins and the University of Maryland.

“I actually think that the cultural similarities and geographic proximity in Canada will make the metastatic spread of this remarkable and unfortunate social policy meme even more likely to spread to the U.S.”

Charles Lewis is a Toronto-based freelance writer who writes mainly about Catholic issues. He has also given numerous presentations against assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Mr. Lewcis, you seem to believe Francis has spoken out “forcefully” against euthanasia? Think again. As with other moral subjects, he covers himself with a statement of moral orthodoxy, and then he immediately becomes ambiguously heterodox. Regarding euthanasia he said, after condemning it, “but we must take into account circumstances and not apply principles mechanically.” And let’s not ignore his reversal of mission of the Vatican’s pro-life office to one that welcomes and promotes voices that have been actively promoting abortion and euthanasia for decades.

Posted by Charles Lewois on Tuesday, Dec, 12, 2017 11:25 AM (EST):

For all those who think this is somehow the fault of Pope Francis, think again. He has spoken out forcefully against euthanasia as have our bishops in Canada. The problem is runaway secularism. We now have a government (as I wrote) that bans pro-lifers. The other issue is too many Catholics have gone soft on these life issues. A priest or a bishop can only say so many times that these are mortal sins but what do you do when people stop listening? Pope Benedict wrote in the late 1960s he believed in the future the Church would shrink to a more faithful core and from there we would grow again. Maybe that’s what needs to happen. Meantime, pray for those of us in Canada who are still fighting euthanasia and abortion.

Posted by Judith on Monday, Dec, 11, 2017 11:46 AM (EST):

abortion has lead us to this point… mankind moves further and further away from God…life no longer has any value in the eyes of the government…may God forgive us our sins and the murder of so many innocent suffering souls. War is a punishment for sin, Our Lady has told us…and therefore there will be no peace…prayer and penance is the answer ...so few of us spend the time to pray…Lord have Mercy on mankind and its pride.

Posted by claire on Saturday, Dec, 9, 2017 3:55 PM (EST):

Those who govern us in Canada and specially PM Justin Trudeau are truly shameful and very few people dare to object because it has been presented to us in such a attractive package. We are being lied to right from the start. I agree with this article, this is a very slippery road and once we are engaged on it, we can never go back. I hope that the US don’t copy us.

Posted by Shelia S Conrads on Thursday, Dec, 7, 2017 9:01 PM (EST):

It is the way governments are saving money. They won’t say that but that is the end result. IT used to be

This is supposed to be a kind thing. In reality it is how liberal governments plan to save money. If the Netherlands can get the vote thru that anyone at 75 can decide they have lived long enough, another 20 years it will be your civic duty to die at 75, then it will become a mandate. In the west the evil one always cloakes it self in “kindness.”

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Dec, 7, 2017 2:34 PM (EST):

For all those liberals who applaud the Pope for saying we need to get rid of nuclear weapons and the death penalty, makes more sense to kill a serial-killer than to kill yourself.

Posted by Pa on Thursday, Dec, 7, 2017 10:25 AM (EST):

Canada has become shameful. We are becoming the next Sodom and Gomorrah. I have never seen
so much abuse of power to lead the people astray making ALL things and life choices acceptable and the new norm. We are becoming close to one of the most liberal countries in the world and will pay for this with a largely degenerate society. Never have I seen things at this level and it makes problems we thought were huge in the 80’s 90’s and early 2000’s
look like we had it made compared to today. Every single decision being made by people in power is the opposite of what’s right. What’s even more hard to comprehend is the amount of people who feel like all this is the right thing to do and a way of liberating us. We are threated with hate speech laws that forbid us from speaking out against any group or person. I basically feel like a robot going about my business as not to offend. Everything is so “in your face” and it’s being done on a demonic level so that I have to compare us to another Sodom and Gomorrah. Huge amounts of taxpayer money being set aside as “gift” payments to those they deem were offended in the past by traditional beliefs.
Millions being paid out to criminals and no border protection. We are on our way to becoming an explosive tinderbox and when people realize it we will have past the point of no return. Saint Michael protect us.

Posted by cthlc12345 on Thursday, Dec, 7, 2017 10:11 AM (EST):

This is why Elections matter. All 4 Democratic Presidential appointees (Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer, Ginsburg) regularly vote on the wrong side. This is why EACH SENATOR is so important, so that President Trump’s outstanding Circuit Court Judges are approved. With 48 Democrats (right now) who regularly oppose President Trump, only 2 Republicans can oppose President Trump’s agenda.

Posted by Pat on Wednesday, Dec, 6, 2017 9:37 PM (EST):

Time for the Church of Nice to excommunicate ‘Catholic’ politicians like Trudeau, Biden and Pelosi. (And anyone else, for that matter. 70% of Canadian ‘Catholics?’ So be it.) Maybe Bishop Barron’s 2% of humanity that is destined for Hell are the Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals and Popes who did and said nothing as Satan ran rampant.

Posted by Tom Dewy MD on Wednesday, Dec, 6, 2017 8:03 PM (EST):

Where is Pope Francis on this issue, particularly in Canada??? Why aren’t we hearing more about it from Rome???

Posted by Graeme Reid on Wednesday, Dec, 6, 2017 7:31 PM (EST):

We can take the Netherlands as an example of what will happen in Canada as euthanasia, mercy killing, assisted suicide, murder, or what ever they wish to call it, can be traced back to the eugenics agendas of World Wildlife Fund founders to “cull” the world’s population to a billion or less.
Canada is under the British Crown and the current Canadian monarch is Queen Elizabeth II. Any legislation in Canada has to be signed into law by Queen’s representative, the Governor General, for the Queen,and that of course that includes euthanasia.
The World Wildlife Fund was founded 1961 in the Netherlands, and is the mother of all radical environmentalism and has many offshoot arms. Its founders and their followers, essentially place animal life and nature above human life and desire to exterminate most of the latter.
Chief founders were Prince Bernhard (of the Netherlands), and Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, with another notable founder being Sir Juian Huxley, a well known eugenics fanatic.
Prince Bernhard was a member of the Nazi Party until he had to give up his German citizenship to marry Queen Juliana.
Prince Philip’s sisters too, all married high up members of the German Aristoracy,
two of whom were responsible for attrocities during World War II.
The ‘hands on’ beginnings of the global euthanasia agenda was in the Netherlands.
A major problem in all this, as noted in Canada and many other places
where morally corrupt laws have been enacted, is that we have systems of constitutionally unsupported political parties, dictated to by crooks who
even accordingly get to choose morally corrupt candidates for the people
to vote in for them. That consolidates the Crown’s system of dominance.

Posted by R.K. on Wednesday, Dec, 6, 2017 4:18 PM (EST):

How absolutely evil is the government of Canada.

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